EPA Delays HFC Refrigeration Deadlines, Scraps R-410A Installation Cutoff
EPA's May 26 final rule rewrote the HFC phasedown calendar, and if you service AC or refrigeration equipment, the details matter.
The headline change: the installation deadline for residential R-410A systems is gone entirely. Equipment with a GWP of 700 or higher that was manufactured or imported before January 1, 2025 can now be installed with no cutoff. The old deadline was January 1, 2026.
The rest of the calendar slid too. Supermarket refrigeration moved from 2028 to 2032 with an interim GWP cap of 1,400. Cold storage warehouses went from 2026 to 2032 with an interim limit of 700. Lab equipment gets until 2028, semiconductor process refrigeration until 2030.
EPA's own estimate says the delays add 68.1 million metric tons of CO2-equivalent emissions through 2050, against a claimed $2.4 billion in savings over 24 years. Critics say aging high-GWP systems leak more and burn more energy, so the savings could evaporate into higher food costs.
For techs, two things are true at once. The A2L transition is not canceled, manufacturing deadlines didn't move, so new residential equipment is still R-454B and R-32 and the training still matters. But the R-410A service tail just got years longer, which firms up the reclaim market since virgin production allowances are still stepping down on schedule.
And remember: states like California run their own refrigerant rules through CARB and aren't bound by the federal delay. A shop working across state lines could be running two different compliance calendars for identical equipment, so check your state's rules before assuming the new federal dates apply to you.
The practical takeaway for this season: recovery equipment and 410A cylinder inventory just became longer-lived investments than they looked a year ago. Shops that treat recovery as a profit center rather than a chore are the ones positioned to win as the reclaim market tightens through the early 2030s.
Full breakdown: read the story at ServiceMag.